


Strange Effects

by Amaurotine Clytie (amaurotineclytie)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Don't try this at home kids, M/M, aetherplay, ascians - Freeform, ascians do not think like humans, everyone is poly, forced closeness, he wants to make sure you know, lahabrea explains problems like a professor, lahabrea falls in love again, lahabrea has a very different concept of right and wrong, lahabrea is very forward about his feelings when it's someone he loves, lahabrea manipulates thancred anyway, lahacred, mind-altering activity, please know what you are getting into, thancred doesn't know he's sundered, thancred falls in love, thancred having a wonderful time actually, thancred's not coming back from this one, the advantages and disadvantages of dating something eldritch, their sharing a body has made them emotionally super close, they enjoy themselves gratuitously, this is an inherently sketchy pairing, this isn't even my otp, this trait in him makes me a little sad actually, wait until zodiark gets involved, why does this fandom love hurting its own feelings so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:20:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23393173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaurotineclytie/pseuds/Amaurotine%20Clytie
Summary: Thancred is lonely now that Lahabrea is gone. Laha, ever diligent, comes to check up on Thancred. Now Thancred is not lonely, but he can never tell the other Scions that he doesn't hate Lahabrea at all...
Relationships: Lahabrea/Thancred Waters
Kudos: 32





	Strange Effects

**Author's Note:**

> this is a lahabrea/thancred fic. the pairing is inherently sketchy. please know what you are getting into. lahabrea/thancred is a problematic concept that's hard to avoid. i didn't even try. i went way out. these two are not in any way a good role model and i do not advise imitating them. they are fictional and full of weird magic. the advantages of dating something eldritch: lahabrea has a lot of experience. it's been a long 12000 years. and what he can do with your aether is more intimate than anything he can do with your body. villains are not here to be judged but to be enjoyed.
> 
> -
> 
> (This fic is a WIP)

It hadn't been a full day since Thancred found himself in a daze outside the burning wreck of the Praetorium. At first he couldn't remember the last thing he remembered, but slowly he pieced it together. He'd been possessed by an Ascian; he'd taken a beating; he must be exhausted; he needs rest.

So they had said. He didn't feel injured or even terribly tired, but he let the others fuss over him because he couldn't remember what had happened, and couldn't correct them. Any injuries he'd sustained had been healed before he even came to awareness. It felt strange being treated as an invalid when he wasn't the least bit sick or hurt, but when he tried to tell the others this, they just said there was no way he could bounce back fine. Minfilia scolded him until he went to bed, saying he needed rest. 

The trouble was, he wanted anything but. He felt as though he had been asleep for an age and had only just awakened; he was tired of sleeping, tired of being unconscious below the surface of his mind-- his, but being used by someone else. A mix of confusing feelings rose within him and drifted slowly away, with that false urgency of needing to get back to a dream-- of something he'd been doing that must have been important, something he wanted to continue, in the dream world, with dream people. Nonsense. It was the first time in so long he'd felt awake. 

But there was something to understand, something that still eluded him.

At the foot of his bed, moonlight filtered through the thick glass of the windowpane, creating a soft glow. Though it had never bothered him before, he got up and drew the heavy curtain. Anything would do to help him sleep. He fluffed the pillow and lay down again, and wondered what it was inside of him that kept him so uneasy.

He wanted to talk with someone. He wanted company. He could not recall the last time he had felt so alone. There had always been someone close by, very close; even in his sleep he felt it. Now there was a gaping blankness where he expected to feel an intense _presence_ , and he was hollowed out by a new kind of loneliness he had never felt before.

As his eyes adjusted further to the darkness, and night vision began to resolve shapes out of nothing, there were darker patches among the light ones. That corner in particular, taking on a slightly ruddy tint, yet so dark it was nearly purple; or was it becoming more vibrant? 

He blinked, and yet could _see_ nothing. But every sense tingled. He was being watched.

Thancred was no mage, but he could not fail to taste the aetheric flavor of the soul concentrating thickly before him. By the time he sat upright, feeling in his sleeves-- no-- his belt?-- he had on only a hospice shirt over his smallclothes! 

He settled for snarling, "Don't come any closer." 

Ignoring this, Lahabrea-- becoming slowly visible in the dimness-- advanced; the Scion's skin prickled in warning at the approach of dark, oddly-tinged aether. "Stand down. You're not in a condition to fight."

"I wouldn't bet on it." Thancred stood up cautiously, flexing his fingers.

The robed figure advanced another few paces to glare at him. "I came to say farewell, and this is the treatment I receive?"

"You came to do what? Impossible." 

"I'm not uncivilized, you know." As if shrugging off Thancred's hostile glare, he pulled a chair over to the side of the bed and sat down, an uninvited guest as always. "I didn't come to hurt you."

"I can't trust that."

"Is that really so." Lahabrea folded his arms and was silent for a moment. "Then why haven't you yelled for help?"

"I don't want to disturb everybody else who's asleep."

"So it is not, strictly speaking, an emergency."

"No," said Thancred sourly, "it is not."

Lahabrea pointed at the bed. "Then sit down."

Thancred glared defiantly at the Ascian for a long moment. 

And then, slowly and deliberately, sat anyway. 

And scoffed, "What do you expect me to do, put the kettle on? Especially if you're going to appear in the middle of the night when I'm presumably asleep."

"You weren't. You were thinking about me."

"I was not!" Thancred yelped. 

And froze, startled at the loudness of his own voice. 

In a much softer voice, he growled, again, "I was not."

"You were and it caught my attention," Lahabrea said. "There is no use pretending I was not in your thoughts."

"Only in a way," admitted Thancred. "I was thinking about my freedom."

"How troubling. Does it burden you?"

"Are you making fun of me? Playing around with lives and bodies like they're toys? Throwing me around like a cloth doll?" 

"No. I'm neither playing nor in jest. My work is quite serious. How is yours?" 

"Shut up."

"Calm yourself down. I merely inquired to find out how you are feeling."

"Why don't you just read my mind and find out? Not an actual invitation, by the way."

"It doesn't work like that," Lahabrea told him with dramatically affected patience, "and possessing you too much would be unhealthy for both of us. But I would like to check you aetherically. I might be willing to endure a little bit more for you."

Thancred clenched his fists, restraining an impulse to punch Lahabrea in his insufferable masked face. " _For_ me?!" 

"I need to make sure you're well."

An irritated sigh replaced whatever Thancred had been about to say. "Awfully generous of you. Why should I trust you?"

"Because if I meant to possess you, I would simply do it. You couldn't stop me last time and you'd be even less able now."

Thancred scowled, but made a small grunt of assent.

"Just think of me as a doctor. Should your mind be damaged, I am the best one to repair it."

"My mind is fine."

"Are you sure you'd know if it were not?"

Thancred stared. He had a point. On the one hand, it seemed colossally stupid to trust Lahabrea; on the other, if this was a ruse, it was an elaborate and pointless one. "Don't you dare try anything. I mean it." 

"Stop with the empty threats," Lahabrea said, leaning forward in the softly creaking wooden chair. "Breathe in and calm your mind, and this will go better for you."

He did, though hardly registering the instruction. "What do you care?"

"Perhaps I have sympathy for your loneliness," the Ascian dared to suggest.

"I'm not lonely."

"You're very lonely, and you hate sleeping alone."

"Who gave you permission to know that?"

"I didn't ask around," Lahabrea remarked. "Your emotions were floating all over your mind, echoing through your body. I had to endure them myself."

"If you hated it so much, you could have gone away."

"Ah, but you liked having me around."

"Like hells I did!"

"You don't remember."

"Oh, and you do?"

Lahabrea smiled slowly. "You were content the whole time." He tilted his head back. Remembering? "I felt you there, like a child, safe and warm as I held you beneath your thoughts." 

"No."

"No? You don't remember this?" 

A warmth soft and gentle, yet nonetheless oddly intangible, settled over Thancred like a blanket, spilling over, wrapping itself, not around his body but around the place he felt himself to be. "I'm sure I felt no such thing," he protested weakly. 

"It's not familiar at all?"

Thancred didn't answer.

"Perhaps this is what you miss. Or perhaps just being with me."

"No, I don't--" Thancred was trying to say _I don't miss you_ , but the warmth of Lahabrea's darkness surged through his awareness like a rare and vivid color, and he felt himself instinctively reaching out for it even as he spoke.

Yet he couldn't let himself succumb to this influence, as benign as it might feel. "I can't do this."

"I'm not about to possess you," said the Paragon with astonishing softness. "I just want to make sure you're not hurt. Close your eyes and do try to relax."

"It's a bit hard to relax." Yet he complied anyway. What was he _doing_ , he wondered. What was he _feeling_?

"It won't hurt a bit if you don't struggle."

These words should inspire terror, noted Thancred as Lahabrea's aether edged in around his senses, but his fears were numb, and he was overcome by darkness and desire--

A gentle pulse traveling throughout each of Thancred's nerves, awakening memories of feeling without imagery, knowledge without thought. Familiarity. Fondness. The last of a dissipating warmth that was fiercely rekindled when Lahabrea... touched him? Without moving. He became aware that Lahabrea was probing cautiously into his mind, but it didn't bother him this time, perhaps because it saved him the trouble of answering, the struggle of articulating truths that he did not understand. He pulled back mentally, making space to allow Lahabrea's careful, almost ticklishly delicate investigation.

"You've missed me more than I realized," said Lahabrea, his voice thick with some unknowable emotion.

He wanted to protest, and yet nothing he could think to say seemed real. His life was far away, and the night was so close. "It is a little bit quiet." 

"I'm here now."

But that wasn't right, was it? "You say that like I'm supposed to be glad."

"You are."

"Well, maybe I shouldn't be." Thancred shook himself as if to throw off the darkness, and felt a pang of regret as the presence did recede, leaving him diminished.

"Maybe." Lahabrea tsk'ed. "How unclear it all is. You don't even know, do you?"

"Minfilia says--"

"Oh, _Minfilia_ says. I think you will find that Minfilia is wrong about many things."

"So you claim."

"She does not know me as you do." 

" _Do_ I know you?" Thancred leaned forward, burying his head in his hands. "How can I know you? I don't know anything that happened."

"Your instincts say otherwise. Please, let me take a closer look."

And just like that, neither invited nor rejected, the Ascian reached again towards Thancred's mind, and the darkness closed in--

And he was aware, but once more, not alone--

Lahabrea's presence clung thickly around him, curling into familiar shapes. It would be so easy, realized Thancred, to surrender everything: his movements, his breath, his very thoughts. All of these and more, the Paragon would accept, would take care of for him. Such very good care, better than Thancred ever treated himself. And for an occupation, this warm and gentle cradle of a vast and solicitous mind. An involuntary sound escaped his throat, undeniably a type of whimper. Twelve save him. He was _enjoying_ this. 

"So lonely," murmured Lahabrea. "So frightened, you've isolated yourself. But you want me here."

"I do not," Thancred said dutifully.

"It's all right."

"Ascian trickery."

"Why would I bother?"

"Mm..." Thancred knew he should have some response, but found none. Thinking was becoming difficult, yet he wasn't tired, but energized; violet-red shapes flashed brilliantly before his sight, even without his aether goggles. Was this Lahabrea's true form?

_It's not me,_ the Paragon answered without sound, the response gliding through his mind tinged with amusement. _Don't look at it_.

"But I've already seen..."

_I'm warning you_.

Perhaps. It didn't matter. He was sinking into a softly buzzing, euphoric silence. 

Minfilia wouldn't like this, he reminded himself. 

Of course, Minfilia wasn't here. Lahabrea was.

Nothing remained, except for one flame. The whole of creation was Lahabrea, Lahabrea-- no-- something else-- his _name_ \-- and Thancred already knew he would not be allowed to remember this.

And something else, a star behind him that couldn't be seen, the Paragon shielding him with enormous black wings, keeping him safe, warm, and beloved. All that mattered, as it was all that existed, this entity holding him close and keeping him safe, curled up inside and curled around, though his wings trembled in convulsions of ecstasy.

How long he stayed was a mystery, save that the sky was still black when the dark presence receded.

Lahabrea still sat calmly in the chair beside him, one gloved, clawed hand resting lightly on top of his own. Twelve blast him, he hadn't even felt the Ascian's hand touch his, so brilliant were the visions before his awareness. He had never realized that darkness could _glow_.

He could definitely not tell his friends about this.

"What was that?" Thancred murmured, the images slowly fading. He couldn't remember what he'd just seen, and yet the imprint of Lahabrea's closeness, the negative space in the shape of his soul, stirred an empty, craving, raw ache.

"I checked the integrity of your aetheric channels."

"That's all that was?!"

"They weren't well insulated." Lahabrea withdrew his hand from Thancred's. "I take it you detected my presence."

"It was more than detecting. You were so _close_ ," whined Thancred in a voice he immediately regretted. "You practically were me again."

"Heavens forfend. I am not you."

Feeling almost, perhaps, just a little bit disappointed, Thancred brushed the insult aside. "Is that what it's like to be you, always?"

"No." Was that a bit of surprise in his voice? "What a question. I am accustomed to being me; you are not. You could not contain me, could not see more than my interaction with you."

"There's more? Your aether goes on and on. What kind of creature _are_ you?"

"I am no creature; I am a creator." Lahabrea sounded, perhaps, even a bit amused. "Your curiosity is endearing. I might just indulge you sometime."

"You would give me the answers?" Thancred wondered if he'd gone too far. What was he even doing, listening to an Ascian? Everyone knew they always lied, anyway. "Aren't you my enemy?"

"As long as you continue to be mine, I cannot help that."

"I'm not being your enemy on purpose. I have to support my friends. This... this all is just too important for me to throw away on a whim. Even the Warrior of Light depends on me."

"Has nobody told you that's who tried to kill me when I was in your body? I pointed out that doing so would kill you as well, but your heroic _friend_ didn't even hesitate. You're lucky to be alive."

"That can't have been the whole story." Thancred knew better than to trust Ascian manipulation of the truth. "We're all just trying-- _I'm_ trying to help my fellow Eorzeans, that's all."

"As am I." Lahabrea's smile was soft, even indulgent. "I pity you, struggling against what you feel. Like an animal gnawing off its own limbs, so desperate you are to escape your self-made suffering." He held up a clawed hand to stall Thancred's protest. "If you like, I could free you from your pitiful moral dilemmas."

"Just because you Ascians have no morals, doesn't mean I don't. You can't take mine away," Thancred replied indignantly.

"I hardly want yours," said Lahabrea, sounding slightly disgusted. "There is no need for such guesswork. Opinions, theories, unsolvable comparisons-- all unsatisfactory answers, compared with consultation and obedience. Struggle and anxiety disappear if you know exactly what to do. Really it's no wonder you went unconscious; you must be exhausting yourself that way. --Don't look at me so. I do make mistakes, Paragon though I am, but they are small, and few; and _inevitably_ the fault is my own judgment. --Confusion isn't an attractive look on you either."

"Do you like to see me angry, then? Because you inspire it."

The Paragon chuckled. "At least it carries some conviction. So are you _trying_ to attract me?"

Confound it, what a trap! "No, I just replied."

"Well, then." Lahabrea stood up. "I've got my information. No, it's nothing to worry about," he said before Thancred could protest. "I learned what state I left your aether in."

"You're leaving now? Just like that?"

Lahabrea turned towards him, looming impassively above him where he sat. "Unless you want me to stay."

"I-- uh--"

A long pause.

Lahabrea turned to go.

"Wait."

Lahabrea stopped.

Thancred swallowed hard, and said, "I guess I could use a little company."

Still turned away, Lahabrea replied, "Why should I trifle with someone too stubborn and pitiable to speak their feelings when they are _known_."

_There's_ the question.

The Ascian knew Thancred, completely. He knew him down to the very bottom-- all his awful selfish places, his bitter regrets, his miserable memories. He knew Thancred truly. While Thancred had no detailed knowledge, but only an intense instinct that he could tell, could have told all along, that Lahabrea never lies. He knew and he was so good, and he was willing to stay--

A memory flashed through Thancred's mind, Lahabrea's wings around him--

"Please." He sprang up and stepped to close the gap between them, and _embraced_ the Paragon. What was he _doing_? "I am lonely without you." What was he _feeling_? It wasn't exactly like being in love, it was-- _profound adoration_. "I don't know what you are. I don't understand. I only know that the shape of you has touched the shape of me, and left an imprint I _can't_ dislike."

Lahabrea simply replied, "Let me go."

Thancred hurriedly released the Ascian, whom he'd not seen so close up before. He was tiny! Thancred had practically scooped him up off the ground in his sudden fervor. How could someone so enormous be so small? "Please stay with me. Just for a while at least."

Slowly Lahabrea turned towards him, and was silent for a minute. Thancred couldn't guess what it meant, or what expression hid behind that stupid mask, only that he was being evaluated on some matter he couldn't guess. 

"I see."

"What? You see what?"

Lahabrea reached up and stroked Thancred's hair, letting his claws linger on the back of his neck, such that Thancred tilted his head instinctively down to meet the Ascian's. "Your feelings know." That warmly suggestive tone again. "Your body knows. Even your soul is crying out for me. Can you not hear it?"

Thancred dared not find his voice to speak, lest it betray him. The Paragon's presence, his scent and even his body heat-- no, that made no sense, he couldn't possibly be warm?-- everything swirled around like darkness thick and sweet, like drowning in molasses-- overwhelming but _so good_. 

Except that this was not supposed to be good. He was not supposed to like this. What strange misfortune that he did like it. 

There was no safe answer to the question, and the desire that flared within Thancred was the opposite of what seemed like a wise choice. 

"It's not fair," said Thancred. "You're not fair." Heat rushed through him, buoyed by the growing electric feeling that buzzed through his nerves. 

"Fairness is not one of my values, of which you are so fond of inquiring about," said Lahabrea.

"I'm... I'm only suggesting," said Thancred, "just for now. I'm still going to follow my own path-- but, it can't be all that bad if just this evening--" What harm could come of carnal indulgence? Surely that alone was not a problem-- so it was fine--

\--and Lahabrea's face was mere ilms from his own, and flushed with the same anticipation-- 

Thancred reached for Lahabrea and pulled him into a hungry kiss. Perhaps acceptance was not such a great deal-- there need not be any dramatic dilemma, because what, after all, was a little playing around? A simple matter of attraction was nothing to worry about. 

On the other hand--

"Say it," said Lahabrea, breaking out of the kiss, and advancing against Thancred, pushing him a step backwards. "Speak your truth."

Thancred gazed at him-- at his mask, hiding so many secrets-- and quailed. What was he doing? "I--" Pushed another step backwards, Thancred nearly fell back onto the bed behind him. 

" _Say it,_ " the Paragon hissed.

"I want you. I really want you. To stay, and more."

"And?"

"And much more."

Thancred found himself suddenly pushed backwards again; his knees buckled, he lost balance, and dropped to the bed. Lahabrea leaned forward, and Thancred found himself pinned down by the Ascian's extraordinary strength. "And?" Lahabrea demanded.

"I... care about you," added Thancred, feeling foolish. "I like you. I have _feelings_. Please..."

"That's my boy." Lahabrea pushed him backwards with one hand, and he fell flat on his back. "No more talk about your silly friends, do you hear? You are _mine_ tonight, and mine alone."

"I... just tonight. Yes."

It seemed that was what the Ascian had been waiting to hear; with only the slightest hesitation, he dropped to the bed where Thancred lay. "Then I will soothe your loneliness for the moment. And though I will not possess you tonight, you will _beg_ for it." 

Lahabrea moved strangely, almost gliding along Thancred's body as he straddled his pinned plaything; fully clothed, his body was as enigmatic as his intent. Thancred reached for his mask, but the Ascian swatted his hand away. Protests and insistent warnings rose to Thancred's mind, and floated aside like rainbows shining on oil; his vague and unformed fears, planted by his friends and not experience, were no match for this moment.

Nerves tingled and flared as he pressed himself upward against Lahabrea's very present, very physical body. He breathed in the Ascian's own breath, and felt something warm and familiar at the edges of his being, pleasantly creeping over him; and the inevitable surrender to the other's aetheric proximity was accompanied by a flash of lust for something more intimate than the caresses of flesh. 

Yet even so his breath caught as Lahabrea rocked against him, lightly-- too lightly-- fueling the burning ache in his groin. The Ascian pulled back, and Thancred felt a tug at his smallclothes, and a tearing sound informed him that the Ascian's claws were, indeed, sharp enough to slice them open-- yet careful enough that Thancred never felt the touch directly. He twitched, wanting-- craving--

The Paragon smiled, and once more Thancred was enveloped in blissful aether, his body nearly forgotten in the intimate caress of a closeness that disregarded physical boundaries. This, the stronger of two pleasures, nearly washed him away-- but Lahabrea withdrew his aether once more to toy with Thancred's body. Back and forth he switched, and every time Thancred thought he would begin in earnest, Lahabrea overwhelmed his senses with the other. Until suddenly, the aether collecting at his heart, a medley of intimacy and devotion, burst forth like a flood, and he felt _all of it at once_.

Clinging together at the same time in that dark and unspeakable space where they could only be and never touch, they grasped at each other, silently affectionate but hardly still; as their bodies tangled together in desperate, hungry motion, their souls did as well. They entwined, closer to the abyss of unity, to becoming so intimate that they would lose themselves in each other completely. But Lahabrea preserved them every time, tearing their souls away from each other with an aetheric movement that sent them twisting and tumbling through graceful postures before returning to each other's embrace. Here even gravity would be denied, should it threaten to interfere. 

Perhaps sometime Lahabrea would let them dip together frighteningly into the risk of Thancred's soul being washed away in his own, but not today. 

The Paragon continued his expert maneuverings deftly, but to Thancred all was a jumble, a certain uncertainty of who, indeed, was moving whose body, and whose pleasure he was feeling; 

Nothing one felt escaped the other; 

By each new shared touch a rush of warmth came through them like a flood;

Filling and overflowing, one to the other, the seductive, annihilating draw of Dark to Light, crackling with the tension of contact, of thin boundaries through which shapes and feelings could be observed. An intangible dance between existences rapidly switching and blending sensations, neither could tell who belonged to which body, or which they were.

And they could hardly contain themselves with the joy of mingling with one another, so deeply and lovingly the two did bond. If beforehand they had been fond of each other, how much more did their affection blossom as they shared such a commingling?

Thancred's self-control was not gone; it had merely bent to serve Lahabrea instead of rejecting him. There was no mistaking wrong or right; they had burnt up in the flame; there was only pleasing him or no. And Thancred relished every one of the muffled, almost unwilling cries he elicited from his lover-- for lover he was; their aetheric touches, and longings, and brief embraces of the soul, had left such an imprint of yearning in Thancred's heart that he felt only pure affection now for the one who so attentively teased forth his aether into leaps and flashes of ecstatic fire. 

It was more than he could bear; it was painful how deeply he desired both the physical and aetheric pressures that Lahabrea kept just out of his reach. He uttered a strangled cry, and the Paragon, perhaps sensing that a limit had been reached, allowed him exquisite release. He collapsed, and though gasping for breath, he held out a hand to stay Lahabrea, to clutch at his robes-- _Don't leave me_ \--

Lahabrea rolled over, his mask still hiding his features, save for his lips, which smiled sweetly. "Do I detect a change of heart?"

The sarcasm made it a little easier to feel distant, and Thancred tried to collect himself. "Don't think I'm on your side now, Ascian. Just because I indulged you."

"We indulged each other," corrected Lahabrea, "and it was well worth the effort."

"Effort? You don't even look tired."

"You couldn't wear me out."

"I might try."

"Your other friends will interrupt us sooner or later." 

"You're not my _friend_ ," insisted Thancred. "I'm not going to ask you for skincare tips."

Lahabrea traced an extraordinarily light, precise line down Thancred's face with a single gloved claw. "Must you pretend? If I return tomorrow, will you threaten and fight me?"

"I don't want to," admitted Thancred. "But I might have to. I can't let down my friends..." He shuddered, realizing he could not bear to harm the Ascian, not now. Not him.

"I'll leave you to think on it." Lahabrea rolled off the bed and straightened out his robes. 

"What, are you leaving so soon?" Thancred complained. "Will you not stay a while?"

"Alas, I have much to do. Get some sleep, my dear. I will return."

And just as suddenly as he arrived, Lahabrea was gone, leaving Thancred to deal with having been called "my dear" by a devastatingly attractive, Ascian servant of Darkness.

* * *

Of course Minfilia fussed when she noticed Thancred looking tired again. She blamed Lahabrea, and Thancred wasn't about to tell her _how_ right she was. Or how Thancred's heart leapt at hearing him mentioned. Or how badly he wanted Lahabrea to keep his promise and return soon.

Oh, how delighted he was when the dark portal finally opened in his bedroom late that night. He whirled around so eagerly that Lahabrea smirked at him.

"You do remember this time, I hope, that you enjoyed what transpired."

"I don't remember any of it," confessed Thancred. 

It was a hidden dark spot in his memory, secret even from himself. He did remember Lahabrea touching him in places inside him that could not physically be touched, playing like an instrument on nerves buried deep within his body. Awakening emotions alongside sensation. But the details were a blurry haze. "All I know is that... that I asked you to stay, and then things got confusing, and--" He rubbed his head.

"And now you're glad to see me."

"Well, yes." Oh Twelve, what if he had told Lahabrea he loved him? "What did you do to me to change everything?"

"Did anything _really_ change?" the Ascian questioned. "When you slumbered under my possession, you had similar feelings."

"Why did I forget? I was awake last night, wasn't I?"

"Oh yes, you were assuredly awake. I'm afraid you might have simply been unable to comprehend and process it in a way that can be stored in memory. Such are the limitations of mortal minds."

Thancred sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling so lost and uncertain. "If I'm so limited, why are you coming to see me? Do you even like me?"

"Is it truly so unbelievable that I might be well disposed to the host whose every reflex I shared?" suggested the Paragon, trailing tendrils of dark aether behind him as he paced across the room. Surely on purpose, they brushed against Thancred's own aether briefly before receding. "Ah, but surely your friends have told you how you should feel about me. How much I hurt you. How awful it must have been."

Thancred had to muster every scrap of dignity not to attempt to cling to the receding warmth. Absurd, he thought, and likely unreal. "Isn't that what you're doing?"

"I'm merely repeating what you already feel. That is the difference. Your friends may guess at it, but I _know_."

"By what-- reading my mind?"

Lahabrea laughed, sounding unexpectedly _normal_ \-- like a person and not like the voidsent thrall he usually reminded Thancred of. "Maybe. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Isn't there?"

"Ah-- I think not. Let us not restrain love before war. It's never worth it."

"You sound awfully confident."

"I am awfully experienced with this world."

"You're so unfair," said Thancred. 

"Maybe," Lahabrea acknowledged softly, returning to sit down beside him. "I never claimed to be fair. I claimed to like you."

"Do you really?"

"Hey, look at me." Lahabrea touched the side of his face oh so lightly with a clawed hand. "Look at me, please."

Thancred found himself turning to gaze at Lahabrea, who reached his hands beneath his hood and removed his mask. His was a strangely familiar face that Thancred had never seen before.

"I don't lie," said Lahabrea. "If I do, it just comes true."

Thancred brushed a golden lock of hair back from Lahabrea's forehead-- soft, baby-fine hair, so bright, like the hair of an innocent child. It was not what he would have expected of this... eldritch being, nor were these kind, gentle eyes. Even the sincerity of his smile-- it had always seemed, behind his mask, that he was lost to himself, laughing at his own twisted secrets, but not now. 

"Did you charm me with your magic?" murmured Thancred.

"Does it matter if I did?"

"Yes, it matters," he insisted, but weakly. "Of course it matters. Of all things, it's one of the most important." Even as he said it, he realized he didn't fully understand why it mattered. It was what everyone would say, wasn't it? It was common sense.

Lahabrea picked up on his lack of conviction-- of course he did! The man could read Thancred like a book; there was nothing he could feel, or say, or assert, that didn't betray him to the Ascian who had shared his mind. "Why?"

"Well, because if you charmed me, it's a spell; it's not real. Not my real feelings or what I actually think. If I only love you because you cast a spell on me, then it's the spell that loves you, and not really me." Wait. Had he _not_ actually told Lahabrea he loved him? Was this the first time? Shite. Did he love Lahabrea? Was he charmed to love him, or to have a crush?

Despite which, the Paragon stayed to his topic. "Then who is the Thancred with real feelings, ones that aren't charmed? Where is he? Show me. Tell me what feelings are there and who's having them."

"I don't know!" Thancred nearly shouted, and pounded the mattress with his fist. "I don't know where that Thancred is or how he would feel. Because I'm not him, I'm a dumbass who let you do Twelve knows what to me." 

He'd been a complete idiot! Why wouldn't Lahabrea still be controlling him? How had he ever fallen for that trick? He'd thought he had really fallen in love, he'd thought he could care for an Ascian? The same one that had possessed him? He should have been smarter than that! "I don't know about the 'real me' who wasn't possessed. I never got to find any of that out because that me never got the chance to exist. Because you charmed me!"

Lahabrea held up a hand, as if he could physically repel Thancred's argument. "First of all, do you _want_ that you to exist? Don't say anything yet-- let me finish. 

"Do you _really want_ to be that? Without me, lonely, hating me bitterly? Would you rather turn yourself into that you, instead of a happier you whose sole difference is that you feel warmth and affection where before you only felt disgust?" He paused. 

Thancred had barely begun to digest the question before Lahabrea continued, "If you want to be that you, I can leave you to it. I can go away and you can hate me and resent me. But I suspect you would not enjoy it."

"At least it would be real, though. This isn't real."

"Isn't it? These feelings exist and you are here having them. Their origin notwithstanding, they are as real as any other feeling, and much more real than the imaginary emotions that you think you would be having, but never actually had. The things your friends think you feel, even though you don't."

"But it isn't natural. It didn't just happen; you charmed me."

"Second of all," continued Lahabrea smoothly, as if he had not been interrupted, "I didn't."

Thancred paused. "What?"

"I didn't charm you. At least, not consciously or on purpose." He paused, and seemed lost in thought for a moment. "I don't think so-- I didn't alter that construct. Your reactions," he informed Thancred levelly, "are completely your own."

"You're lying. You're a lying liar," said Thancred, "and I shan't believe you-- what? What, you mean you _could_ have but you didn't even know?"

"I'd want to double-check my calculations. I don't actually _do_ that to people, believe it or not, so I've never worked out the logistics."

Lahabrea looked like he was going to ask for some paper and a pen, so Thancred quickly switched the subject. "I don't know why I should believe-- no, you know what, I do believe you," he realized aloud. 

"I'm not what you imagined, am I?"

"Are you _really_ Lahabrea?"

"You recognized me yourself, didn't you?"

Without thinking, Thancred reached out towards Lahabrea, searchingly-- and drew his hand back in embarrassment. "You are too familiar to be anyone else, that's all."

The Paragon smiled gently, and Thancred thought he was going to melt on the spot. 

And visible aether strands shimmered into being.

Thancred could feel them, hear them, see them; brilliant flashes of color, soft bells ringing, darkness and a confusion of violet-red tendrils that wove and braided themselves along his edges, like ivy upon the wall of his soul, tangling delicately into his substance as if seeping in. The sight was so beautiful he could not look away: pictures, words, sounds, flickering delicately nearby, while those tendrils seeped their way inwards with the lightest and gentlest of touches that both aroused and fulfilled him. Lahabrea was exploring him and his edges, feeling delicately around the seams of what defined Thancred, and it tingled pleasantly, warming his body and his heart.

"Why me?" murmured Thancred.

Lahabrea paused. "I would love anyone in your place. It is only natural."

"But it was me. You picked me up and took me. And you hauled me around and used me and dropped me and now you're here wanting to examine and treat me. And now you have to love me. Why couldn't you have loved me from the beginning?"

"But I did," whispered Lahabrea, a gentle hiss.

"But it isn't-- What? _What?_ "

"From the moment I nestled inside you, I developed unbounded love for you. My feelings towards you grow even now; why would that be strange?"

"You used me. How could you love me and use me?"

"I love someone else, too."

"That doesn't excuse it."

Lahabrea put one gloved, clawed hand on top of Thancred's, sending pleasantly tingling aetheric sparks through him. "Please understand. I did not have a choice."

"I can't _trust_ you."

"I can understand that."

Feeling like he was going to die of confusion, Thancred clutched both of Lahabrea's hands in his own. "Are you really okay with me not trusting you?"

Lahabrea lifted their hands and slammed them lightly against his lap. "I wish you did trust me."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too."

"I do love you, though."

"That's good, because I actually love you too."

"You don't even sound _surprised_."

"It's a common reaction for people to have to me."

"Are you sure you're always honest?"

Lahabrea lifted Thancred's hand to kiss the back of it. "Being around me has strange effects. You are right not to trust me. However, they will not harm you, and you will likely be glad of them."

Thancred closed his eyes and let Lahabrea's presence and warmth wash over him...

**Author's Note:**

> (This fic is a WIP)


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